It's worth repeating that it's possible to greatly enhance the value of Web content using currently available semantic markup. It's what Mark Pilgrim was talking about when he implored us to "try pushing the envelope of what HTML is actually designed to do, before we get all hot and bothered trying to replace it, mmmkay?"
On a related note, Jon Udell notes that "ubiquitous but underexploited technologies (XPath, XSLT, XHTML) can make our everyday information more useful." His summary, which prompted this post, effectively simplifies the message:
When you work publicly, in blogspace, as I have been doing, reaction to your work is exquisitely measurable. And when I take the pulse of that reaction it's clear that I'm miles away from proving three points:
- Ordinary Web content is already full of metadata,
- which can enable powerful queries,
- which, in turn, can motivate us to enrich the metadata.